Living green: The first step toward creating a green (home) office

Going paperless

By Deborah Renfrew/Life@Home

Remember when the advent of the computer age promised to render us a paperless society? So much for idle promises. Many of us who labor away daily in home offices use paper at a rate that approaches 750 pounds per person per year, say the experts.

But for all of that computing, copying and faxing, it’s not out of our reach to drastically shed some pounds. It’s a choice that’s not only ecologically responsible; it also cuts down on clutter. And who wouldn’t be more productive in a clean, streamlined workplace?

“In New York state alone, paper accounts for 27 percent of the waste in landfills,” says Maureen Wren, spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The big-picture version of this statistic is that 20 percent of the world’s population, concentrated in the industrialized nations, uses 87 percent of all paper. Without a concerted conservation effort, that figure will easily increase nearly 100 percent by the year 2020.

With high paper use comes depleted forests, and ground and water pollution from the chlorine, caustic soda and acids used in the paper manufacturing process.” We can strive to become that paperless society, but habit change doesn’t come easily. Printing at the push of a button has become a knee-jerk reaction,” says Wren. “Our success lies in changing our thinking. As that occurs, we realize that everything we do on a personal basis, and the collective efforts of individuals, have the potential to make a resounding impact on the environmental problems we face in the 21st century.”

When you must print or copy documents that don’t have to look absolutely professional, Wren says the most effective measure is to use both sides of the paper. Set the print request to double-sided or put the used paper back into your printer. “In one single step, you can cut your paper usage in half,” she says. Wren also advises the technique of “two-up,” or two pages side-by-side, reduced in size, on one sheet of paper. Again, this option can be set on your computer.

Here are some other tips for an eco-friendly, paper-reduced home office.

Print just the pages, paragraphs or sections you need. You don’t always require the entire document. Familiarize yourself with your program and printer capabilities to allow partial printing. Always request a print preview to make sure you’re not getting extraneous text, advertisements or just a few lines on a single sheet of paper.

Streamline documents. Reduce the size of margins and fonts to get more text on each page. Don’t be verbose or redundant. Say more in fewer words on each page.

Proofread online. And don’t print until it’s final. If you find it difficult to read so closely on the computer, enlarge the typeface temporarily.

Print or copy on an as-needed basis. While some projects might legitimately call for multiple copies of a document, don’t make them all at once. Needs change, and often you are left with extra copies. Don’t get into the habit I once had of making backup copies in case one is lost.

Use online processes. Whether signing up for an organization, registering for a program or purchasing event tickets, look for and choose an online option. Pay bills online or authorize automatic withdrawal from your checking account.

Turn used paper into scrap paper for internal uses. Single-sided copies, envelopes from the mail or other bits of paper that come into your office can be cut to memo-size and used for all those notes to yourself.

Go with recycled paper. The process of making new paper from the old is easier on the environment because it uses fewer chemicals and less water and energy than the production of virgin paper. According to Wren, it’s a nearly equal trade off with one ton of used paper yielding nearly a ton of recycled paper. EnCon numbers bear out the claims: A ton of recycled paper saves two barrels of oil, 7,000 gallons of water, 4,100 kilowatt hours of energy and three cubic yards of landfill space.

Cut the amount of paper coming into your office from outside. Get off junk mail lists through the Direct Marketing Association at www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing. The association charges $1 for this service. Be sure to list all name and address variations under which you might be listed.

Send e-mail attachments instead of hard copies. If you distribute information for clients, e-mail it. Discourage hard copy altogether or make it available upon request. And if you’ve already supplied information, avoid doing so again at a face-to-face meeting. If you’re meeting with more than one client at a time, consider having them share a document. Discuss your paper reduction efforts with your clients and get their agreement in advance to go paperless whenever possible.

Streamline your mailing lists. If you work with a mailing list, review it on a regular basis to avoid sending duplicates. A local organization that my husband and I patronize once had us on its mailing list in triplicate, with each of us included individually and my husband listed again by his initials.

Recycle. Sure, we hear this all the time, but if you can stand another nudge, keep a recycling bin right beside your workspace as a reminder.

Lay a guilt trip on your e-mail contacts. Now that you’re working lean in that home office, add an effective hint to others at the end of your e-mail messages, saying “Consider the environment before printing this e-mail.”

“In New York state alone, paper accounts for 27 percent of the waste in landfills.”
— Maureen Wren, NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation